In Praise of the Also-ran Nothing is more fun than watching Phil Mickelson crash and burn

Failure, especially in a country full of strivers andopportunists like the U.S., can be greatly underrated. Take EvelKnievel, who on Sept. 8, 1974, endeavored to ride hisrocket-bike, Sky-Cycle X-2, 350 mph off a 108-foot-long ramp,soar 2,000 feet above the three-quarter-mile-wide Snake RiverCanyon and land on the other side. He crashed seconds aftertakeoff, landing 413 feet below in a yard sale of sideburns,sunglasses and red-white-and-blue motorcycle leathers, but wasthis outcome more interesting than if he'd simply clearedanother row of school buses? You bet.

That brings us to Phil Mickelson, golf's Evel genius, whocontinues to try more coral-brained stunts than the rest of thetop 100 players on the Tour combined. His most recent may havebeen his bravest (dumbest?), and keep in mind that this is a manwho, while leading by two strokes in the 1996 Nortel Open,intentionally skipped his ball across a water hazard. Mickelsonwas trailing Tiger Woods by a shot in the final round of therecent Bay Hill Invitational when he tried to thin a four-ironunder branches, over water and onto a green 180 yards away. Helater asserted, lamely, that going for the green was his onlyplay. Everyone else knew better. The shot was damn nearimpossible--there was no reason to try it, other than to see if itcould be done--and Mickelson, predictably, skulled his ball intothe drink nowhere near its intended destination.

Mickelson is fighting something in himself, a seeminglycompulsive recklessness, and his internal battle is fascinatingto watch. This is partly because the drama hits so close tohome: Who among us isn't fighting something in ourselves? Andit's partly because Mickelson desires to win majors and go downas one of the greatest players of all time, and that creates aspecial kind of tension each time he looks down at his ball insome impossible predicament and decides whether to go for it or,just this once, exercise prudence.

Mickelson's story is, hands down, the most compelling in golf. Itresonates like the old Peanuts gag in which Charlie Brown kepttrying to kick the football only to have it pulled away by Lucy,and it will continue to resonate as long as Mickelson keepstrying. For he knows that all of his heartache and frustrationwould be expunged from the record with one success. Just one!

Do you really want Mickelson to fire his caddie, Jim (Bones)McKay, and replace him with someone who could perhaps steer himaway from trouble? Do you want Mickelson to have an epiphany andbecome--gasp!--like Tiger, a near perfect closer who almost neverbeats himself? No way.

Neil Steinberg points out in his 1994 book, Complete and UtterFailure: A Celebration of Also-rans, Runners-up, Never-weres andTotal Flops, that throughout history "the second-placers andalso-rans were sometimes better, more interesting, even moreworthy, than those whose combination of luck, effort andcircumstance for some reason brought success. George LeighMallory was a handsome, romantic figure who wrote poetry as hetrekked up the side of Mount Everest. Edmund Hillary was a drabNew Zealand beekeeper. But it was Hillary who made it to the topof Everest and back, immortalizing his name, while Mallory, whodied trying, is the answer to a trivia question."

That is why each time there's a new installment of Mickelson'smisadventures, it's the talk of golf. Last season Mickelsonentered the final round of a tournament either leading or withintwo strokes of the lead nine times and won only twice. It wasmaddening to watch, but we did. We respond to failure. We knowhow it feels. We want to run out to wherever Mickelson and Bonesare standing, scratching their heads, on the precipice of anotherbout of strategic amnesia, and yell, "No, no! Don't do it! You'reonly behind by a stroke! Pitch out!" Then he does his usualcraziness, as we feared he would, and we're half mad at ourselvesfor not intervening, half fascinated by our powerful visceralresponse.

If a golfer can elicit such passion from fans, can what he'sdoing really be a bad thing? Those of us focused on the endgame,keep this in mind: Few remember whether Charlie Brown ever kickedthe ball. (He didn't.) We remember that he tried like hell.

Before he became the premier postseason performer of his generation, the Patriots icon was a middling college quarterback who invited skepticism, even scorn, from fans and his coaches. That was all—and that was everything